The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps

by Michael Blanding

Maps have long elicited a special fascination -- both as practical tools and as beautiful works of art. But to collectors the map trade can be cutthroat, with quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects. This is the story of antiquarian map dealer E. Forbes Smiley, who for years doubled as a map thief until he was finally arrested for slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library.

• ISBN10: 1410471144
• ISBN13: 9781410471147
• Publish Date: 10 September 2014 (first published 29 May 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 17 June 2021
• Imprint: Thorndike Press
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 575
• Language: English

Reviews

[dpfaef]

Part history of cartography and part true crime the The Map Thief tells the story of Forbes Smiley, antiquarian map dealer turned map thief to support a life style.  I guess I am not that interested in the history of cartography and less so of Forbes Smiley's shallow existence.

The book was slow going and I found hard to follow as the author moved from past to present. The history of cartography, at times felt like filler to cover the skimpy biography of Forbes Smiley. It is astounding that anyone would steal maps from libraries for personal gain.  It puts a taint on all of antiquarian map dealers and leaves me with the impression that collector's really don't care where the map came from. One could tell from looking that the maps are old but where did they come isn't often asked.

Forbes Smiley stole millions of dollars of maps and only spent four years in jail, says a lot about how we handle white-collar crime.This review was originally posted on THE PFAEFFLE JOURNAL